


May the Best “Woman” Win

by Deuterosis



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Bondage, Cunnilingus, Graphic Description, Kidnapping, Nonbinary Character, Other, Spoilers, Strap-Ons, Touka is More Cool Than Mutsuki Deserves Here, Touka is Pretty Cool, Unfortunate Work Title, Yandere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:08:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29097795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deuterosis/pseuds/Deuterosis
Summary: Kaneki escaped the :re raid -- butToukadidn't.
Relationships: Kirishima Touka/Mutsuki Tooru
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I used “Other” because I don't think Mutsuki is really a trans man, nor cis either; I think they're androgyne, so that's what I'm sticking with. Somehow I have the feeling I will need to put a note to this effect on every Mutsuki story I write... I wish people could realize Mutsuki turned out ambiguous enough that there are different ways of reading them and it's not _all_ transphobia-driven to doubt what we all thought at the beginning, even up to reading Mutsuki as a GNC cis woman who was just lying or, later, confused. There are even many trans men who read Mutsuki that way at the end.
> 
> Anyway, that detail doesn't really have bearing on the story itself. I guess I just wanted to get it out of the way if it's going to be a problem in the future.
> 
> The extra prompt I chose is Morbid Plot, and that should say... most of it. Some cycle of abuse stuff going on here.

"Nnrrrgh...."

Ropes. Dove steel. That had to be what she felt. The upper right, the lower left. Black eyes open in terror.

"Hello, you _Ghoul._ "

Right. _This_ random piece of shit. Coming out of nowhere and burning down :re, slashing Kaneki while moaning like they were fucking instead of Kaneki trying to deal non-injuriously with some knife nut that he knows. No doubt from his days as a Dove....

"Aren't you going to say anything?"

Touka tried to look at him without looking at him; no telling what will provoke. The white hair didn't match up with anything. The style of villain coat didn't ring a bell either. The black eyepatch making him ever more sinister, she would have remembered that.

Brown skin wasn't much to go on, but....

"Not worried about... 'your' 'Kaneki'?"

 _He was Kaneki before you ever knew him, jeez; he has a life outside of you._ Was what, a long time ago, she would have said to spit in his face.

Thought about it a bit longer.

"Why should I be worried about him? If you captured him, wouldn't you be with _him_ instead?"

The jerk lost his sense of humor quick.

"Fine, then. _Miss_ Touka Kirishima." He kneeled on his right leg, the bases of these ropes looped around her extremities lowering with his ass. Very good with his Bikaku, to use four tails as prisons.

Normally her kagune would have had the advantage, but this mystery moved like a monster, and even worse, something had sliced her kakuho and made it worse than useless, still far from healed. It was only now, being apparently long-used to the feeling, that she realized hard claws were hooked into it, keeping it out of commission.

"If you're so shrewd, then can you guess what I'm going to do to you here?"

She looked out of the edges of her vision. It was as nondescript a nearly-empty warehouse, or a place that looked like it, as you could ever see in poorly-lit night.

"Punish me, right? For 'stealing' Sensei away."

"Don't you call him that." The calm controlled face could lend space to such a growl. "That's my name for him. You have your own things you call him, don't you?"

"Maybe I _do_ call him 'Sensei'."

If she was going to die here, then let it be on her own terms, thanks to her own mouth.

Or so she thought, but the half-ghoul took a visible effort, fingers tapping independently of each other over his knee.

Where the hell was the wild dervish of blades and lustful anger that tore through :re not long ago? This was almost worse. This was like that sick, smug smile when he held Yoriko's hand....

Smile. . . .

Couldn't be _him_.

"Don't waste our time with lies, Kirishima. I can tell from the way it sounds foreign on your tongue that you've never called him that."

 _Who, again, is this freak?_ It couldn't be that little green-haired stick, could it? The shorter Dove with Kaneki when he first set foot in :re as Haise Sasaki. The voice was relatively far off in the past, and very far off from the cold lick of this low timbre, but it just barely sounded familiar: the way he said "Sensei".

That guy?? He looked so damn normal!

_But then again, I guess it's not much different from a Ghoul blending in._

She tested the same limbs again; no weakening of the Kagune. "Okay, fine. What do you want me for? Gonna send me to Kaneki in pieces until he comes to save me?"

"It's tempting." His knees, advancing, brought him closer to her and her lightly-spread legs. In the same motion, a knife came to her throat, fingers in her hair. "I'd love to see Sensei regret ever picking you."

She met his eye, stoic.

He met her mouth, kissing.

It was so sudden and light, gently insistent, so catching-off-guard that it took some seconds for the bite command to reach her jaw; by then he'd already pulled back.

"Soft...."

As if it were still in there, she spat the little poke of his tongue away. _That_ was another option, but-- one Touka had been hoping to avoid, here....

"But that's still not why I brought you here; for revenge, that is." His hands, insisting, falling to her hips, trailed up her rib cage to roll her shirt out of the way. "I want to know, Kirishima."

"Know what?" But she had a feeling she knew well what he was getting at.

"Why Sensei likes you so much. Why he chose you, and the _Ghouls_."

"If you were like this when he knew you, I can guess"

"I wasn't like this at all."

The wild, glazed tint to his gaze turned lucid and sharp all of a sudden, boring through her skin as if she were responsible for yanking away the keystone that supported the very world.

"I wasn't like this _because_ of him, do you get that?!"

He huffed, staring down through her as if on the verge of tears. Vulnerable and desperate and hopeless, instead of in command.

 _Now_ he looked a little more like that Dove.

At least until he growled again, a low sound like that of a thwarted and irritated predator, and lowered his head so his mouth was masked by the skin above her navel, his leonine eye glaring up into hers.

"And so I think I have a right to know: What is it about _you?_ "

The air in the room swiftly raised goosebumps over her chest.

"Pretty things like this, do you always wear them at work, Miss Kirishima?" His uncovered eye visibly traced the lace. He rolled the shirt up over and over itself until it wouldn't be wriggling back down on its own.

"Shall I rip everything away? Or just expose you?"

_He's gonna ask me questions. Yeah, that's exactly what I want. One lump or two? Back door or front, dearie?_

He waited as if expecting a response, but her lack of response seemed to satisfy enough, curling the corner of his mouth. "Well, I don't know why, but somehow, being tangled in your clothes like this makes you seem much more helpless than naked."

She only kept her gaze level, staring him down even when he wasn't staring back. There was nowhere to look, so might as well not look away, right?

"Are you going to make eye contact the whole time?"

Exactly the necessary thing for this moment. Smart-mouthed taunting. Gotta rub it as far in as possible, at every single chance.

But she wouldn't be dissuaded from trying to put as much of a scathing death threat into her own half-covered gaze as could be managed. Little more than toothless as things were, but, if Touka wasn't just seeing things, it seemed to ruffle the Dove's feathers just a bit.

He tried to ruffle hers by leaning close again, all of a sudden, the better to sniff her with, breath on her flesh.

"Mmm, you smell a little bit like him." He seemed torn between digging his fingers into Touka's skin for the insult, or enjoying the leftovers of his mentor. "Sensei...."

Too fast for Touka's lunge, or maybe she'd wound up telegraphing it.

"Ah~ Almost forgot."

He turned away from his work, secure in the prisons of his tails, to remove something from a midsized box set nearby. Indeed, he came prepared. This was a new one on Touka, an inverse of the Ghoul mask: a freaking muzzle. It held her lips and jaws so tightly together, they couldn't move.

"You look far more presentable with that on."

 _Okay, _who?__ What kind of cruel Dove? The leather was lined and shaped using something hard enough to beat a Ghoul's jaw strength; it can't have been something from a prurient store.

With the freedom to get close to her head and not worry, he returned to investigating her chest. She couldn't even complain, couldn't make currently-empty threats.

"They're just so big." His dry hair tickled as he started to nuzzle her, lightly kissing skin already exposed. "Tell me, does he seem to prefer women with large breasts?"

And now that she thought about it, Rize was pretty stacked. It hadn't been the only reason Kaneki'd been interested, but no doubt a feature he'd approved of.

"...Fine, don't answer me. It doesn't matter." He pressed and rolled them out of their cups, gently, probingly. "Even for him I'd never want a chest like yours."

Again, the air got to her before he could.

"Hm. This is what they're like."

The softness of his touch was almost worse than violence. He probably knew that, too. It was its own threat, as well as being confusing enough Touka's mind couldn't predict at all where he planned to go and what he planned to do. He could stop with violation and let her free to live with it, or he could just be playing with his food.

Seemingly distracted by thought, he looked up from the side he'd slathered in wetness.

"I bet you would."

"Would what?" she mumbled, muffled question clear enough.

Smiling, just not in the mood to answer, he left the topside to travel, inch by inch, towards the still-covered bottom. On reaching her belt, he suddenly rose back up on his knees, rethinking something.

"Hm... I suppose you don't need that right now."

He unbuckled the ghoul muzzle; Touka could already feel its absense above and under her skin, blood moving more freely around her mouth. He took it away by the front, leaving no chance to bite him.

Next, of course, came her belt. He worked the roadblocks in his path away leisurely, shorts, stockings, underwear; they all wound up pooled about her ankles. Her legs kept closed by reflex, yet it was trivial for his tails to spiral up them, hook her knees and pry them apart.

Despite herself, she still tried to think ahead of him, figure out at least what to expect. Next he'd repeat his investigations down below, right? Yes, but not the same way; instead of starting with his hands he leaned down, and instead of his mouth she actually felt the stirring of warm air as he sniffed her scent like a dog. After three puffs he took it in deeply, and perked in relief.

"You _don't_ smell like him here. Either you've showered and cleaned yourself out very well, or... he's still never had you, has he?"

Her teeth ground back everything she could possibly say.

"Ah... That look says it all."

For a while, way too long, the Dove did much of the rest of his speaking with his tongue. He could speak with his hands just as fluently. It was a painfully new language that made the traitor between her legs hang on to his every word.

_Ugh, how did he get this good at this? Do I _want_ to know?_

As she struggled again by reflex, he paused, heat of his breath settling on her. "Good, isn't it? Being licked?" His voice had turned husky, and his eye... there was just no describing what look had come over it.

"I wouldn't know," she answered, trying to look indifferent. "Could hardly feel a thing."

"Liar."

He seemed determined to force a strong reaction out of her, and eventually got his way, without her slightest say in it. She recognized the feeling, but here it was like being tied to a plank which is tied to its shipwreck mere feet below the surface, being tugged under by a violent wave and quivering from the chill as the water drained away, leaving her exposed to salt air.

His lips were visibly damp. One eye bright.

"Oh my. . . Did you really come?"

He answered that himself by grinding his foreknuckles over every wet inch of skin, just enough to glide, just enough to really really really really

"So you did~." He took them away, but his thumb began to slide along the peak idly. "Sensei's going to be real disappointed in you, isn't he? Since you've just cheated on him."

"It's your fault, dumbass..." The ghost of the quiver roiled sickeningly past its due date, very much on par with the difference between human flesh and human food.

"No, no, you enjoyed that." As he said it, his other, drier hand closed over the hem of her shirt, just at her left side; loosened almost as quickly.

It seemed to have meaning, but.... _Was that a threat or what?_

"But. This doesn't feel nearly as good, does it?" He meant the press of his fingertips into the loosened cave, in which they easily passed up until they didn't. "It's too much to bear, isn't it?"

Instead of trying to force them further, he paired the twisting of them with pressure over the diamond peak, keeping everything shallow, unobstructed by friction.

"Too much? Too much?"

She couldn't have answered.

He started to rummage in fleshy pits ridged by muscular walls, and her legs began to kick, restrained to forceful wriggles in their cages.

_I'm not gonna beg, I'm _not_ gonna beg I'm not gonna beg_

"Don't you have any words in your vocabulary other than 'Fuck'? Besides 'You'."

There was something impassive about the way he was, well, enjoying this... something removed. Loving the power it represented, to make her respond this way, but not quite having a sexual stake in it. At least not yet.

It didn't seem to make things more or less bad, just differently so.

He was still too good at all this, and Touka could do nothing about it. A heavier weight pressed over her, something foreign made out of something familiar. It might have been fireworks at night if it'd been Kaneki, and through a less insistent path, but of course here it was like being force-fed sugar, sickening and awful.

Once her body calmed and flattened, he stretched Touka out and straddled a leg from its back side, hands braced on both her thighs, one on the ground, other near his chest.

"I've never done this before. Been on top." Another weird clutch, trimmed fingertips running hard over her flesh both ways. "Has _he?_ Even chaste as it was?"

 _Geez. Why doesn't he just open his pants and get it over with already?_ That part had to be eventual. This was just drawing out the torture....

His hips ground against her, cloth horrible and coarse between her crotch and his, but she didn't feel a hardness besides the press of his pelvis, and suddenly, some of his babbling at :re started to make more sense.

"A- Are you--?"

He'd been absorbed enough in it that her question jolted him slightly, or maybe it was the question itself. His mouth set as if he'd tasted something sour.

"So you've guessed, huh. All right, I suppose it had to become apparent soon enough."

Half-hesitantly, his hips drew back, dragging the rest of him with.

"You might as well see me too." Oddly, the pants were slipped off before he reached to unbutton his coat. "If Sensei really hasn't touched you with his naked chest, it's going to be me..."

The small peaks and valley didn't startle Touka, weren't what drew her eye. That part, she'd already figured out.

But these scars, light ones everywhere, only on the torso....

They might have been old. And if so, how old?

_And who else do I know whose dark hair turned white after an awful ordeal?_

"Don't look at me like that. As though you pity me." Rolling anger, but also a touch of being caught off-guard by her reaction, as if he didn't expect anything but revulsion or judgement, some form of hate. "You don't even know what it's like, do you?"

As in, the overall thing that was happening right now? No, not really; if you could fight at all, as a Ghoul, it wasn't likely. Human creeps would die, other Ghouls were far more likely to just plain kill you. She hadn't worried much about the prospect before.

As in, to wish your body was different and to try to get other people to look past it and see you? No.

As in, to know what it feels like to have your body torn apart while you're helpless to stop it? Oh yeah, she knew.

"You'll have to be more specific," she answered, again tugging her limbs, but much weaker now - that, or the grips had become even stronger.

"There's no point in telling you."

_No, I'd say there's a lot of point._

Meanwhile, the Dove had set his hand over her navel, bringing her attention back to him.

"Wondering how I'm going to do it?" _No, not really._ "I could penetrate you with this, you know."

One of those knife Quinques, held poised before his crotch.

He traced it torturously-slow over the inside of her leg, so in control of the blade that it always threatened to score her skin yet never actually breached it. Even as her body tensed by reflex, he held it perfectly still.

"Hmm, but I won't." He tossed that Quinque aside, where its clatter on the ground rang out like a swordfight. "I have something better."

Once again he reached aside for something he had to have brought here before ever coming to :re. Once again Touka could tell what it was. Yes, she happened to know about them and think about them on occasion, gauging how badly the idea might frighten Kaneki. It's the kind that lets you feel it as if it were made of flesh, your own flesh. She recognized this exact make and model as one she'd considered.

Having made sure she saw it, the Dove suddenly turned her over, crossing tails over themselves, holding Touka's forearms against the body-warmed floor in an X. One would think he'd want to watch her face twist with pain, but apparently he didn't want her to see him put this thing on more.

Instead of expectant moans, little hesitant whimpers covered the slick noise of insertion, as if it hurt him, as if somebody was forcing it on him. It sounded just short of crying.

Touka very nearly asked "Are you okay?" meaning, "What _exactly_ is wrong with you?" -- weighing if the Dove could be talked down at all, if there were motivations for this act and all the others that she could possibly distract him with.

The claws curved over her shoulders remained anchored, kept her kakuho useless.

"So, that's how it feels."

The heavy weight didn't meet much friction, nor resistance. If Touka struggled, it would be worse; that was just the fact of things, with her bound and her Ukaku gagged. At best, she could keep him from the satisfaction of more reactions. At least that wasn't difficult... he seemed to be moving almost experimentally, as if she'd wound up as a secondary concern.

"You know, it's nicer for _you_. I've been nice to you."

_I hadn't noticed._

"No striking; gentle force.... It's very tempting to hurt you, but I haven't. And didn't you expect me to?"

It somehow didn't even sound like he was addressing Touka. Like it didn't matter who was there, like he was talking to talk the way you do to something inanimate. Or in your sleep.

"You did. I know it." Silence, brief, against her neck. "But no, I'm not like him, I'm not like him."

"Who's 'him'?"

She could hear the small hitch in his breathing, almost, nearly as if he _hadn't_ been aware of his talking. The air returned in a hiss.

"If you were planning to keep your trap shut,"

Her forehead cracked against the ground--

"Keep it shut, you bitch."

Now he replaced the muzzle.

The rest of this span of time was spent in relative silence, and not for lack of trying. Touka didn't need to expend effort to keep her teeth together, so she focused, counterintuitively, on pain: pain in combat, pain of hunger, pain of living. None of these dwarfed the others, but morphed into a continuum, in which if any could be withstood, then all could. With some hitches, this was how she always survived the storms blowing through her life, and how it continued now.

At least until she became aware that the Dove, absorbed in his assault, began to cry out. 

"Ahh... Wait, no, not-! --!!"

For all he'd crowed about forcing Touka's body to orgasm, his own caught him off-guard, tipping him over, flat over Touka, and then, finally, she did scream in her throat, out of the shock. This wasn't a feeding bite, a tearing bite, but a desperate bite, a bite that didn't know its own strength.

_Well, shit...._

His hips pumped once, twice, grinding out the last of sensation, and finally his jaw released her, his breath with the shudder of aftershocks gliding down her back.

His hand still pressed into her hair, but somehow it felt like an afterthought. More like he'd forgotten, to an extent, where his own body parts were.

"I get it, but I don't get it."

For a few heartbeats longer he lingered, braced and panting, as the rust red ran down Touka's back.

* * *

The interloper kept her for a while. It took him effort at first to turn her back over and pin her back in place, since he was eager to slip out his penis, throwing it aside like he suddenly found it eerie, like a poisonous centipede had appeared in his hand. Then he retreated to a corner and folded himself up, sitting, as if to think. All this was with his tails still looped around her, still alert to the smallest twitch in her limbs.

The silence was almost eerier, almost worse than any other part. No stabbings, no taunts, no crowing. Just dead silence. He'd left on his eyepatch this whole time, and that was the side turned to her, so she couldn't tell what was reflected in his eyes right now. The only hint to his mind was the clutching, now and then, of his pant legs in his fingers.

Whatever that signified.

There was no telling where Kaneki was, what he was thinking, what he was doing. He could come somehow through the wall without warning, lashing at his former student; he could be at home in the 24th devastated while trying to marshal a coherent search party; he could be scouring the night and not thinking straight.

After a while, even dismayed as he was, the Dove climbed on top of her again. It may have been just a dream/nightmare, but it may not have. She lacked the mental resources to discern or care. There was just the ghosts of him pressing their bare hips together and "kissing" her, desperately searching for the finish line. Touches trailing down her chest, trail of Dove slime against her leg, him curled up against her, fingering the wet cavern mechanically like his heart wasn't in it anymore.

When she finally came to, her captor was gone. Touka tested her limbs again, but she found the kagune traded for cuffs and weights made of Dove Steel, impossible to budge in the state she was in.

The muzzle was gone off her, cast aside. The strap-on wasn't anywhere to be seen.

"h... help...." No use. Even if anyone benevolent was about, she wasn't going to be yelling in this state.

It took several minutes before the Dove returned, walking unhurried towards Touka. She didn't even bother to twitch or speak. If she lashed out, weak as she was, it wouldn't get her anywhere but stabbed. The only thing to do is see how he plans to proceed.

Instead of triumphant, serene or dispassionate, he seemed perturbed, upset. His look seemed to say, _Look what you've done to me._ Touka tried to say back, __I_ didn't do a goddamned thing._

First he opened the cuffs. Then, backing off, he tossed a heavy lump in front of her face. She'd smelled it already, but couldn't believe her nose.

"Where did you get that?"

"Wouldn't you like to know. Eat."

It wasn't somebody she recognized, but just the fact that it was here....

"It's not poisoned. Here, look."

He bent down, lifted the thing to his teeth. Touka's eyes widened, but she didn't comment.

_Are they all just open about being Ghouls now?_

She did finally push herself into a sit, too weak to do much more than consuming the forearm brought to her. Her stomach growled for it, her wounds needed it, but she still made no move to reach for it.

"If you don't, I'll just end you."

"What is it exactly that you'll expect from me, when I eat this?"

"Isn't it clear? Another fight, of course."

"What for?"

"Not very smart, are you?" When his provocation didn't get any reaction, the smirk washed back into agitation. "We're not like each other at all. The only thing we have in common is..." He slashed the air with his blade, vertically, in front of his crotch. " _this._ I don't know if I can make a case for me or not while you're around. So the only thing that's left is for us to fight to the death."

"Don't be petty."

"'Petty'??" He had to giggle the word, equal parts humor and desperate sorrow. His knife aimed. "Miss Kirishima, eat that thing!"

 _Your mouth's been on it._ But finally, she did reach out and pluck it. She still waited; waited until he got impatient, until his fingers began drumming along the handle of his Quinque.

"Fine."


	2. Chapter 2

Goat's base had to sing with her arrival, the uncertain beginning leading into the endless chorus. Touka's fine, she's alive, she got away, she lives. Kaneki's in pieces, oh god, you're alive sister.

"Touka." Kaneki ran to her at once, naturally in horrific shape. "Oh, thank god, thank god...."

The celebratory crowd quickly dispersed to leave the two alone. And it's a good thing, too, because the instant after the footsteps all left, Kaneki's body went rigid with a fear unexpected by anybody.

"You smell...."

 _Great._ She braced herself to explain it, since apparently she didn't bathe hard enough in the river.

"Touka, you smell like... Mutsuki?"

His nose traced the trails she'd hoped he wouldn't notice, breaths and his voice sounding desperate and desperate.

"Why do you smell so much like Mutsuki?!"

"Look, don't even think about it."

"I can't not!"

Predicting what was coming next, Touka had already grabbed him.

"Don't stop me!" Fury tried to yank him out of her grasp, and yet, he had weakened so. "He's gone too far!"

"Let _me_ be the one to decide if I want him dead or not, all right?"

Even now, the word "dead" forced him back into lucidity. "I-- wasn't going to kill him...."

"Then what was the plan?"

He looked torn: unable to ignore what he'd sleuthed, while wishing, hoping that somehow this moment wasn't real. Another thing to make him miserable for the rest of his life. Honestly, she could punch that ex-student of his for that alone.

In that sense, she _had_ to lie for his own good, since there was no changing it. "Look, he didn't really rape me. Just touched." She started to explain the logic that went into it, as she understood it, but realized he'd only start blaming himself even more.

"That's not any better!"

_No, it's not, but...._

Eventually Touka herded his deadened body into a bedroom, where Kaneki slumped. He couldn't know what to do with this news, especially because there wasn't much to do. He wanted to punish, but Touka didn't want that, and the cause of the question of it was someone else he had cared for for some time -- probably, time-wise, about as long as he'd even known Touka. It must be confusing as hell, and if on some level he was making it about himself and his reactions, she didn't see how much else could be possible when the knowledge came so sudden and utterly unexpected.

Into this maelstrom she said what was on her mind:

"If you want to do something to fix it for me, then why don't you give me something nicer, to forget it by?"

He didn't answer right away, of course; what she'd said must make no sense to him. "You... want that?" 

"Yeah. It'll help."

Tears burst over the side of his face as he blinked; he wiped them away. No doubt that was the last thing on his mind, the last thing he wanted to do, and she wouldn't have forced it, not yet. But soon, he acquiesced.

It would have been nicer if things weren't in this type of State going in, but the wish was for her more than for him. She'd had the intention since before the choice to abandon :re, and damned if this will stop her....

_This stupid mercy is going to bite me in the ass._ That was almost a guarantee.

But it made a very big difference that she'd looked on Yoriko's cafe from afar to see what became of it and saw her friend to be perfectly intact.

What was it about the Dove that she was unable to despise? The scars and white hair and sheer difference in attitude reminded her of Kaneki, and the wholehearted investment in wanton cruelty, punishing her with any weapon, reminded her of Ayato in his youth. Yeah, this Dove was fucked up -- but somebody, something fucked him up. That much was obvious. In the end he was just one more person who turned into a monster in one way or another to cope with being gutted by life.

That didn't wash away how monstrous it was to let that vengeance consume you, and in such a way - but how much could she criticize it, as a Ghoul who had killed for revenge?

More important, this idea of a "fight to the death". Normally that's just business as usual between a Ghoul and a Dove. But she had the feeling that this guy would be getting what he wanted no matter which one lived to brag about it.

And the way that Touka wanted to thumb her nose at him was to give him not what he wanted.

He'd be in torment, wishing he'd done her in and no doubt wondering why she'd spared him, after what he'd done.

And that might very well be more torture than anyone could ever inflict.

* * *

Mutsuki had been given an improper burial.

It had been a mistake to give her that arm. He'd thought that thing in the cafe was her at full strength, feasting regularly on human beings. _This_ thing instead was a little supernova, a little controlled supernova, riddling holes in the ceiling as she dashed away. She'd used his every expectation against him, holding back while using the building as both weapon and distraction, so by the time he realized she was _fleeing_ she was too far ahead, too swift to catch with an avalanche of rubble falling in her wake.

"Damnit!"

It took this long to burrow his way out of the mess, after brief confusion as to which way was up, to see that the ceiling and walls of the ex-factory had all become its new floor.

_The sunrise is beautiful...._

Even though she was long gone he couldn't help but shout his intentions to the bright blue sky.

"I'll make you pay! Both of you, I'll make you pay with _blood!_ "

_I should've killed her when I had her right here!_

_Why didn't I?_

_Why..._

_Why...._

_Why did I........_

He'd done it because it was worse and more violent than stabbing her, not so acutely sexual that he'd forget himself and kill her early, but what it meant was....

That....

"I'm no better than a man...."


End file.
